Meanwhile in Afghanistan...

Despite the fact that President Obama is taking credit for the Iraq victory, he seems pretty quiet when it comes to discussing the war he did support. Perhaps this is why:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- U.S. forces lost 22 soldiers in Afghanistan, mostly to roadside bombs, since Friday, marking a bloody step-up in the insurgency as a major U.S.-led offensive seeks to capture the spiritual homeland of the Taliban movement in Kandahar.

The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said it is gaining ground against the insurgents, but violence is rising across the country, including in areas that were considered relatively safe.

Five more U.S. soldiers were killed Tuesday, while three Afghan workers for the British charity Oxfam were killed by a roadside bomb in Badakhshan, which had been one of the safer places in the country.

The coalition says that casualties are rising as they push against the strongholds of the Taliban in the south and the allied Haqqani network in the east. The majority of casualties - 60 percent - this year and in 2009 came from improvised explosive devices planted on roads and paths.

U.S. and Afghan forces are expected to begin soon an offensive in Zhari and Panjwai, southwest of Kandahar city, the last part of operation "Hamkari," to secure and stabilize Kandahar province. Mullah Omar started the Taliban movement in this area in 1994, and it conquered much of the country in the two years that followed.

Of the 22 American losses since Friday, 17 were the result of IEDs, according to figures provided by the ISAF. In that period, only one non-American coalition soldier was killed.

We are roughly at an equivalent point to that in which Bush ordered the surge. The difference is that the media played up every single death as one in which Bush was solely responsible and Bush kept his faith in our troops when a lesser man would have crumbled. Obama has faced nothing even close to the daily haranguing Bush did because the media are protecting like they've always done. There is no giddy countdown to death number 1000 or death number 3000 like here was in the Iraq war. Instead, there's the death of another 22 that are downplayed for political reasons to protect their favorite while the families of those who died grieve. Are these heroes not as important as those who died in Fallujah or Baghdad? Of course they are to those who are sane but not to media and many in the Obama administration where they are essentially a daily distraction from the important issues like winning in November and setting up a healthcare bureaucracy. Priorities you know.

This is the war we have to win and is at a critical point. You wouldn't know that judging by the amount of time the media has covered it because it's simply an inconvenient issue and makes their favored guy look bad.

Sadly, they are robbing the glory from those who are shedding the blood for us. Ernie Pyle must be turning in his grave.